Elektron’s Octatrack is a 10 year old groovebox that is hard to learn, has outdated audio effects and no clear use case. And yet this legendary machine still sells, is still loved and is completely unique.
Some random ways to use randomness on the Elektron Octatrack
The Octatrack comes from the Swedish company Elektron and is perhaps one of the strangest electronic musical instruments ever built, from its design to the music-mutilation results. The Octatrack is hard to describe. It’s an eight-track step sequencer, but it’s also a sampler, an eight-track recorder, a MIDI sequencer, and an effects box. You can use it as a guitar looper pedal or simply as a mixer for other gear. And it’s this wealth of possibilities that led to the first Octatrack myth: that it’s hard to learn.
"The OT is as versatile as it is idiosyncratic. Its rich feature set makes it unmatched, but the lack of guardrails in some areas makes it a somewhat high-maintenance companion," musician and Octatrack user Hans_Olo told Lifewire in a forum thread. "But judging by the number of studio videos I've seen it pop up in unexpectedly, after 10 years it still seems to be the best choice [for] many artists, which I attribute to the lack of real competition."
Every time you read about the Octatrack, you’ll see that it has a “steep learning curve.” But that’s only true if you’ve never used a step sequencer before. It’s in-depth, sure, but no harder to learn than the computer or phone you’re reading on now.
